High school students love prom, but turning those awesome experience into nostalgia with great yearbook prom coverage is easier said than done… because, let’s face it, prom happens really late in the year.
While working prom coverage into your yearbook is difficult, it’s certainly not impossible. It just takes significant planning and a dedicated staff.
Of course, it’s also a matter of timing.
To squeeze prom coverage into your yearbook, you’ll need to make sure your yearbook deadline happens after prom. So, before you do anything else, check your calendar.
Even if the deadline is just a day or two after the prom, that gives you time to put something together for the yearbook. And, if you follow our tips, no one will know how much you had to rush to make it happen; it’ll look as awesome as the rest of your book.
Read on for our advice.
Yearbook Prom Coverage Tip #1: Plan Everything—And We Mean Everything—Before The Big Day
There will be pages of your yearbook that you labor over, devoting loads of design and editorial resource; there will be others that, because of constraints like time, have the potential turn out a bit less polished.
Your yearbook prom spread is in an interesting case: Time inevitably plays a factor, but it’s such a focal point of the school year that it’s important your yearbook coverage reflects that. Laying the foundation for your prom spread well before the big day actually rolls around is the key to making this happen.
How might you go about doing this this? By making use of every resource available. Take a look at the various templates you’ve developed for your yearbook. Can any of them be repurposed or built upon to accommodate prom coverage? Ideally, you’re looking for a spread that can accommodate a lot of bold, narrative pictures, very little copy, and some unique design elements.
If so, start there instead of building something from scratch. It’s going to save you a ton of time and stress.
Once you’ve decided on a template for your prom spread, plan everything else, too. And we really do mean everything. Make sure you determine the other design elements you’re going to use in your spread, coverage angles for any copy you’ll include, and photo ideas (more on this in a second).
The easiest way to do this is a bit of reporting: Get in touch with your school’s prom committee and learn what the year’s theme is. Casino. Underwater Wonderland. Gatsbyesque. All Chocolate Everything. Think about how you can subtly pay homage to the theme, whatever it may be, without overshadowing the design elements present elsewhere in your book. This will allow you to maintain continuity while still giving the prom spread its requisite personality.
From there, it’s all about the pictures.
Tip #2: Look to Old Prom Photos For Inspiration
While you won’t have photographs of this year’s prom until, well, after this year’s prom, you can look at pictures from years past to get a better understanding of what would work with your yearbook prom coverage this year
But don’t just take the ones used in old yearbooks; that’ll leave you recreating the same spread.
Instead, print out images and lay them out on a table. Using the template for this year’s prom pages as a jumping off point, have your staff put together ideas for spreads. Once they’re finished, take a step back and assess. Where do the similarities lie? What sorts of stories are you able to tell? Are they successful?
This activity won’t just give you an idea of what this year’s prom spread will look like, it’ll give your staff clear instructions on what kinds of pictures to take at the actual event. Once you’ve determined a general direction in which to take your prom coverage, assign particular types of pictures to your photographers and tell them to tuck reminders beneath their corsages and boutonnieres.
Tip #3: Stick To The Plan, But Make Room For The Unforeseen
Prom’s over. It was incredible. Your staff took hundreds of photos and including them all would be a book unto itself. But alas, you’ve got a single spread in which to capture the magic of the evening.
Remember that activity with the old prom pictures? Have your staff do the same thing again, using the template you’ve already designed and the photos they took to create the perfect spread.
While your planning will certainly pay off here, there’s always the chance that something totally unforeseen happened at prom. For this reason, it’s important not to be married to the coverage idea your team came up with before the big dance. If your team captured an incredible moment that you weren’t expecting, find a way to include it.
Yearbook prom coverage is a lot easier if you plan ahead. So, create a template and figure out your visual storyline ahead of time, then follow the plan. But remember: While you might really want to nail your yearbook prom coverage, it shouldn’t get in the way of your staff having a great time. Make sure they enjoy the evening.
The old adage about work and play is never more necessary than on prom night.
